Georgetown answered all the questions about local basketball superiority last weekend when they dominated Linden in back-to-back games at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall in both the male and female competitions of the Guyana Amateur Basketball (GABF)/ Wildfire Productions inter-association three-game series.
The male team of the Garden City squandered a 20-point lead late in the fourth quarter to eventually register a 66-65 points win in game one Saturday night after the female side had put away Linden 73-65 earlier.
Both Georgetown teams followed up their victories with a 67-62 triumph in the male event and a 57-48 win in the female tournament Sunday night.
Point guard Darcel Harris led the way for Georgetown in game one with 12 points and nine rebounds, while captain Royston Siland marshalled his troops with an 18-point performance in game two. Centre Jason Alonzo had 18 points for Linden in game one with support coming from Terrence James’s 13 points. Trevor Profitt scored 17 points in game two for Linden, while Alwyn Wilson and Marvin Hartman had 14 and 10 points respectively.
In the female tournament, forward Natasha Alder scored a career-high 35 points in game one as guard Rhonda Charles ended with 17 points and centre Delicia Mayers 12 points for the Georgetown team.
Shakelia Sampson put in 23 points for Linden in game one, while Sonia Rodney finished with 16 points. Althea Byass with 11 points was the team’s leading scorer in game two with Sampson putting in nine points.
Charles scored 24 points in game two while Alder finished with 12 points and 12 rebounds for a double-double ahead of the third and final game on Saturday at the same venue.
It was a highly defensive start to the male competition Saturday night in game one with the first seven minutes yielding a combined score of 17 points: 9-8 in favour of Georgetown with Harris providing the defensive energy. The first quarter ended with Georgetown up 15-8, compliments of a huge three-point shot from Harris from way outside the top of the key. Georgetown stretched that lead to 40-23 at the end of the first half in game one of the male tournament.
The first five minutes of the third quarter encouraged the biggest lead of the game by Georgetown after the city side went up 48-28, but Linden chopped that 20-point lead to 10 (50-40) by the start of the fourth quarter with good defensive pressure.
The pressure continued throughout the fourth quarter forcing some unnecessary turnovers from the George-town unit. A put-back from Alonzo in the paint brought Linden to within six (54-48) as the Georgetown offence struggled.
Linden went on a 6-2 run in the final two minutes of the last quarter to trail Georgetown by two: 56-54. A fast-break pass to Nevin Grenville produced a chance for Linden after Grenville was fouled. However, the point guard could not convert the two free shots, scoring the first and missing the last shot that would have sent the game into overtime.
Georgetown’s coach Robert Cadogan confessed after the game that his charges had a few jitters coming off the bench at the bottom of the game. Nevertheless, he said the win was what was important. “We had some jitters coming off the bench, I missed 10 running free throws that could have put us up by even more points but my guys are relatively young to this magnitude of tournament,” he said. Meanwhile, Linden coach Claude Raphael indicated that his team would bounce back from the back-to-back defeats. He said that the team took too long to adjust to the venue and the offence of the Georgetown team.
There will be some adjustments and I am confident that we will bounce back,” Raphael said, adding that the team was lacking high percentage shots from the perimeter.
The team will have that chance to bounce back on Saturday in game three.
